NOS News•today, 06:00
East Timorese bishop Carlos Belo, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996, has been accused of sexual abuse by several men. That writes weekly De Groene Amsterdammer based on its own research.
The men say they were abused by Belo in their teens, during the independence struggle in which the bishop played an important mediating role.
De Groene reports that he has spoken with several East Timorese victims who designate Belo as the perpetrator. A 42-year-old man says he was invited by Belo to his residence as a teenager. “The bishop took my pants off, started groping me sexually, and had oral sex with me,” said the source, who was later credited with receiving money from the church leader. The abuse was a one-off, he says.
Another source, now 45, says he was repeatedly raped and abused by the bishop as a teenager. He too would have received money: “That was meant to make sure I would keep my mouth shut. And to make sure I would come back.”
The period to which these allegations relate was very difficult for East Timor. The country was occupied by Indonesia in 1975 and the struggle for independence was brutally crushed in the early 1990s. The population was also ravaged by poverty and hunger. In the midst of all the misery, the church was highly regarded as one of the few institutions that helped the poor. In addition, the church is a refuge for East Timorese who peacefully protested against the Indonesian regime.
Bishop Belo suddenly resigned as head of the church there in 2002, shortly after East Timor was recognized as an independent state. This happened under unclear circumstances. According to the official statement, Pope John Paul II relieved the bishop of his duties at the request of Belo himself, due to “physical and mental exhaustion.” Shortly afterwards, Belo left his native East Timor. In 2004 he was put to work in Mozambique as an assistant priest, a rank clearly lower than that of bishop.
A church official in East Timor has confirmed to De Groene that Rome has imposed a travel restriction on Belo, but the Vatican itself does not answer questions from the weekly about the allegations. The current cardinal in Dili, the capital of East Timor, also does not want to comment.
‘Public secret’
The Salesians of Don Bosco, the worldwide Roman Catholic congregation of which Carlos Belo is a member, also does not respond to De Groene’s questions. They are known in the Netherlands as the first congregation that was accused of when the abuse in the church in this country was brought to light. It later emerged that they were involved in numerous abuse cases in Europe, America and Australia. A commission of inquiry installed by the Dutch Bishops’ Conference ruled in 2011 that sexual abuse was part of “the internal monastic culture” of the Salesians.
De Groene writes that the abuse allegations against Carlos Belo have long been a “great public secret” in East Timor. But due to his hero status dating back to the time of the independence struggle, he would be “too big to fail”. The victims the magazine spoke to were afraid for years to speak about their trauma, in part because their story would be “a great shame to the country” and “undermine the fight for independence”.
